Friday, November 18, 2016

on how it was all pieced together

Zeke
and I were sitting at the kitchen counter at my mom's empty house
waiting on the contractor to show up, passing the time with a puzzle.
There was that one piece that just wouldn't fit. I kept trying to turn
it this way and that way and but it just didn't look right anywhere.
Rand, our contractor boss man (a friend who had known my dad and told me
about it- so kind), shows up and walks around and then has
some questions for my mom. As she's talking on speaker
phone, Rand picks up that stubborn puzzle piece and puts it right where
it needs to go, looks up, and voila. House plans are final and
everything
suddenly comes together. It's a go.

Eleven years earlier, the road home to Shreveport opened up. Jack
and I had moved back home from Kentucky with our toddling, singing, dancing little
girl and we found a cute little white house on a hill that would do just
fine for the three of us. It was just a mile or so from my mom's
new-to-her house- the house that surrounded her with all its light in
her dark time just after dad died. We lived in that little house in a
big way, stuffing her with our dinners and parties and laughter and
prayers and memories. But we also outgrew her over time, especially as
the two baby boys we later welcomed into the world grew. With every
year, the walls seemed to get a little closer together. So we decided
to move on and we put our little white house on the market and we showed
our little white house over and over and over again. And over. And over. Over 100 times. Months of red
lights turned into years. It was a stubborn, very stubborn puzzle
piece.

In the meantime, there was a family with a big
blue house nearby and they needed to sell. It was THE house for us- or so we thought, the house we would
have bought had we gotten an offer on ours. A mutual friend later told
me that the owner of that house walked by our house for weeks praying for our house and for us and wouldn't
you know it, just a little while later she sold that blue house? To
another girl named Candace!? Her puzzle piece fell right into place but
mine was still frustrating me just a little bit.

After
a while, we threw up our hands and gave up. Clearly, this wasn't
working. Until one day, I went over to my mom's empty house (she had
moved to Texas after she remarried and had been trying to sell her house
too to no avail) and I walked around and thought. What if THIS was our
house? This beautiful old house with the big backyard and screened in porch?

Well we all thought about it and then Rand
shows up and puts his plan together and after we shifted some things
around and added just a little bit, our house-home puzzle piece fit just
right. We remodeled this summer and moved in in July, officially closing
on the house with our friend Ben Bethard as our title attorney.
God's beautiful wink to us was not having to even put our house on the
market again. Some friends bought it for a rental property and we were
able to just walk away from it, thankful for the memories but so crazy
relieved to say goodbye. When that piece fell into place, it was the easiest thing in the world- God's time.

We'll pack this house full of
memories, too. We already have in fact. We are settled and
grateful, adoring our light-filled octagenarian house on Unadilla Street
that fits us like a glove.

Me and my space pirate

Anna Grace

Zeke

Asher

Captain

Pocahontas

May it dwell in us richly - Col 3:16

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About Me

I'm Candace, a lover and follower of Jesus who made me a wife, mother of three, and a light-chasing photographer. I like my food spicy and my coffee black and every now and then I lose my keys and never find them again. Welcome to my journal and journey for Light.